Also:Got a bunch of very thoughtful comments about...

2006-08-31T12:13:00.000-04:00

Also:

Got a bunch of very thoughtful comments about the Pedro-Koufax section, including this one from Matthew, which has a good (I believe) discussion of what exactly IP means in the comparison:

I think Koufax is better, although not by much. If someone says it's a dead heat, I don't really have a problem with that. But anyway...

Koufax threw 320+ innings in his last 2 seasons. Other pitchers threw a lot more then, too, but only 3 threw more than 300 innings in those 2 years.

The ERA+ argument with Pedro is not really helpful, either.

The problem is that you can say that Pedro did a 250 ERA+ or whatever in 210 innings, but Koufax did that, too. Plus he did another 110 innings of 110 ERA+, which adds extra value.

Pedro's best ERA+ was 285 in 217 innings.

Sandy Koufax's best ERA+ was 190 (in 323 innings).

Now a 285 ERA+ in 1966 context would equate to a 1.15 ERA.

And Koufax did exactly that, for 217 innings! For the other 106 innings he pitched that year, he was merely above average -- 2.89 ERA (league ERA, 3.28).

It may seem like a too quick-and-dirty way of analysis, but Koufax was as valuable as Pedro in 1999-200 PLUS 100 innings of a good reliever or an Andy Pettitte-level pitcher.

Another way to think of it is this:
Would it be better for Pedro to miss the first two months of the season because he is not 100 percent and you KNOW he'd have a 285 ERA+ for 217 innings that year, or would it be better to have him pitch at less than 100 percent, but still effectively (113 ERA+) for two months, and THEN have exactly the same last four months (285 ERA+ for 217 innings)?

Plus, there are twice as many sh*tty pitchers making a living in the 1990s/2000s, thereby widening the gap between best and worse, separating the good pitchers even more from the floor.

Do you really think it would be more likely that Koufax could put up mind-bending ratios-in-comparison to the league, when the league comprises 50 pitchers like Julian Tavarez accumulating 20 percent of the innings, while squeezing by at 200 innings a year; or that Pedro could stretch out and dominate a league where he'd have to face Juan Marichal and Bob Gibson 10 times a year and pitch 25 complete games?

But back to the ERA+ argument -- I don't think you can just look at ERA+ and say, ok, Pedro's is higher, he's better (which, by the way, I am NOT accusing you of doing). And this is because it's different that OPS+ in that there is a floor ( i.e., 0.00 era) which is physiologically impossible to attain. And so when Pedro has a "better" ERA+ than Koufax, it's not necessarily because he's better. Because of the floor, the lower your era, the harder it is to increase your ERA+.

Expounding, it's important to note that the ERA floor, while theoretically 0.00, just can't be expected to be zero. Guys play poor defense that isn't charged an error. Vlad takes a ball about to hit the ground and slams a solo shot. Etc. and so on. Bob Gibson's 1.12 doesn't match Pedro's best seasons (as far as ERA+). How much lower could Gibson really be expected to go? I'm sure with a good break or two, maybe it's .99 or something, but he was already rubbing against the floor.

That's the problem.

To me, I guess it comes down to the fact that Koufax could give you a Pedro-like performance for 2/3 of his season and then a pretty darn good performance for an extra 100 innings. The postseason favors Koufax as well. The arguments for Pedro, however, are that he pitched in tougher ballparks, off a lower mound, and faced the DH for most of his career (and certainly in his prime). So yeah, calling it a dead heat is fine, but I put a lot of value in IP, so I give the edge to Koufax.

One of our annoyingly astute readers, Adam, wrote ...

2006-08-31T12:08:00.000-04:00

One of our annoyingly astute readers, Adam, wrote in with this annoyingly correct comment:

"Hafner is the best hitter in baseball, and I seriously doubt that his 15-run lead over Jeter in VORP is made up for by Jeter's mediocre defense. If there were any justice, Hafner gets it, and Jeter's second."

You are incorrect here. Players who play in the field are usually judged by their defense above the average -- BP calls this fielding runs above average. But if you don't play defense, you don't even get to accumulate ANY defensive runs. That is, you're not an "average" defender because you don't play; you're below replacement level because you don't play. Hafner has -1 fielding runs above replacement, while Jeter doesn't really have to be particularly good to gain those 15 runs back -- he could play a below-average defense, but he's still accumulating defense above replacement level (since replacement level is horrible defense). In this instance, Jeter is actually good defensively -- 25 runs above replacement so far this year. That gives him a 26-run advantage in defense over Hafner, more than enough to make up for the hitting.

He is absolutely right. I don't know exactly what happened, but I believe that when I checked BP's DT Card for Jeter, I saw his FRAA of 1 and thought I was looking at FRAR -- not crazy, since he had a FRAR of zero in 119 games in 2003. (The site has adjusted Jeter's totals after yesterday -- his FRAA is now -1, adjusted for all-time. Which reminds me -- how flukey is that 17 he put up last year? What the hell is that? It makes me very suspicious of the whole metric, that he can be solidly negative his entire career and then one year suddenly add a win and a half through defense?! My guess is, it was Wang's power sinker forcing easy grounder after easy grounder to be tapped right to him. But I digress.)

Anyway, Adam is totally right, although Hafner is at 10.0 WARP3 and Jeter at 10.1, so even with a slightly negative defensive component, Hafner is almost exactly as valuable as Jeter. By the end of the year, I expect Hafner to pass him.

Some people wrote in to add Carlos Guillen's name into the mix, though Jeter is way ahead in WARP3, 10.1 to like 7.3 or something. Jeter also has a higher EqA, .315 to .307. Jeter's better. And you know how much it pains me to say that. Although, I would like to amend my comment about Hafner getting it "if there were any justice," and say that the catcher in Minnesota, with the .927 OPS and 9.4 WARP3 and .321 EqA is a better choice than Jeter. I was riled up about Joe and laid my eggs in the Hafner backet, partly because he is fast becoming one of the truly great hitters of all time, and no one is paying attention. But for MVP, assuming the Twinkies make the playoffs, I would go Mauer 1 and Jeter 1A.

Comments on FIRE JOE MORGAN: Give Me a C! Give Me an H! Give Me an A! Give M...

Also:Got a bunch of very thoughtful comments about...

One of our annoyingly astute readers, Adam, wrote ...